Rawat justifies Amrita's sacking from Cabinet

Dehradun: A day after dropping Satpal Maharaj's wife Amrita Rawat from his Cabinet, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat has justified the move saying that there was nothing unconstitutional about what he had done.

"What I have done (sacking Amrita Rawat) is completely within the limits of the Constitution. There has been no violation of any of its provisions by me," Rawat told reporters in Dehradun.

However, the Chief Minister did not explain what sparked Amrita's expulsion from the Cabinet.

Rawat, who replaced Amrita with Dinesh Dhanai soon after her removal from the Cabinet, ruled out another ministerial reshuffle in the near future saying the ‘exercise was enough for now’.

Amrita Rawat is wife of former Congress heavyweight Satpal Maharaj who dealt a blow to the party by defecting to BJP just ahead of the polls in March this year.

Considered a leader of clout, his sudden defection to BJP is being seen as one of the factors which led to Congress's rout in Uttarakhand where it lost all the five seats.

On being asked whether he had identified a seat to contest to enter the State Assembly, he said political events have unfolded so fast over the past few months that he never got time to ponder over it.

As per rules, the Chief Minister, who represented Haridwar seat in the 15th Lok Sabha before being sworn in for the top office on February one this year, has to win from any of the Assembly constituencies in the State to make it to the Vidhan Sabha within six months.